Rex Reason (born in Berlin, Germany on November 30, 1928) is an American actor.
Rex Reason began his show business career in 1948 at the Pasadena Playhouse, performing as a stage actor for three years before coming to the notice of Hollywood. In 1951, he was given a screen test at Columbia Pictures and was cast as the lead in a starring role in his first picture, a low-budget adventure drama titled Storm Over Tibet. Reason was under contract for two more years at Columbia until moving to Universal in mid-1953, after making a promising appearance in the sword-and-sandal epic Salome opposite Rita Hayworth.
Reason appeared in several films and television shows throughout the 1950s and 1960s. He made two pictures at Universal Studios under the name "Bart Roberts", before demanding his own name be used, which actually sounds like a Hollywood stage name. Rex Reason is perhaps best remembered for his role as stalwart, heroic scientist Cal Meacham in the 1955 Technicolor sci-fi cult classic This Island Earth. Reason also appeared opposite Clark Gable and Sidney Portier in Band of Angels (WB,1957).
Rex also starred in two television series, including Man Without a Gun (1957-1959), a pacifist Western series as Adam Maclean, editor of the Yellowstone Sentinel newspaper, and The Roaring 20's (1960-1961), a 1920s-era crime drama musical series as police detective Scott Norris.
Rex walked out on his film contract with Warner Bros. in the fall of 1961, when he was being considered for a starring role in the Frank Sinatra production of John Frankenheimer's The Manchurian Candidate, which was so controversial that, having begun as a WB project, was completed as an independent film and released by United Artists in 1962. Actor Laurence Harvey portrayed the lead character that Rex had been considered for.
He is the older brother of actor Rhodes Reason, who is two years younger. Many may have mistakenly assumed they were twins.
After his film and television career ended, he worked as a real estate broker and is today retired, enjoying life and has had a second career as a voiceover actor.
